When I was in college, an older man asked me what I was majoring in. I replied “The Humanities.” He was quiet for a while then said, “You will never make a lot of money but you will have an interesting life.” He was right. I have had a very interesting life. Although I have not made a ton of money, I’ve made enough and have never struggled. If I could do it over, I would not change my major. Never
I love this. And same, I wouldn’t trade it for anything even though I did hate where it kept me because my career started kinda late due to the forces I wrote about. But now, I have the language and background to keep reading in those areas and interrogating why things are how they are. My life is so much richer for it. We need more people to see that their lives are poor without philosophy.
What a Sunday! Coffee, a swim, and a new Anuradha essay. I'm doing some reading into the feminization of publishing and humanities education right now. The selecting out of masculine and non-progressive voices in the world of literature and fiction gets a lot less attention than this same process in films/shows and video games...
...but I believe that literature/fiction ultimately might be the most consequential of them all.
Erecting an orthodoxy which covers an entire field or range of institutions must ultimately be self-defeating (unless a huge amount of institutional power and probably coercion are brought to bear) in our society. Insurgent voices will simply migrate elsewhere, and found their own book clubs and create routes to publish online. They'll establish their own book prizes. They won't stop reading or writing. If the appetite is out there, then it will be satisfied. The humanities is supposed to reflect the deepest aspects of human existence. By constraining and perverting it the true believers have simply guaranteed their own slow irrelevance. Granted, this will probably take decades (as it will with social science). But the need is there. It's not going away. We must understand society, and we must have written art that reflects the beauty and pain of being a human. We must. No ideological or status-centered substitute will suffice. Most people can recognize the distinctions... even most of the elites who produce and consume the ersatz products. I suspect that's part of the reason that they're so defensive and cliqueish. If they really believed in the superiority of their values and their products they would welcome dissenters and oddballs, knowing that their works would shine in comparison. But their strategy is rather the opposite. It's pretty telling, I'd say...
These particular ones I think are more problematic because of their control over knowledge. I also recall reading that computer programmers were low status too. The question is what gender had to do with it.
When I was in college, an older man asked me what I was majoring in. I replied “The Humanities.” He was quiet for a while then said, “You will never make a lot of money but you will have an interesting life.” He was right. I have had a very interesting life. Although I have not made a ton of money, I’ve made enough and have never struggled. If I could do it over, I would not change my major. Never
I love this. And same, I wouldn’t trade it for anything even though I did hate where it kept me because my career started kinda late due to the forces I wrote about. But now, I have the language and background to keep reading in those areas and interrogating why things are how they are. My life is so much richer for it. We need more people to see that their lives are poor without philosophy.
What a Sunday! Coffee, a swim, and a new Anuradha essay. I'm doing some reading into the feminization of publishing and humanities education right now. The selecting out of masculine and non-progressive voices in the world of literature and fiction gets a lot less attention than this same process in films/shows and video games...
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/why-wont-hollywood-give-us-what-we
...but I believe that literature/fiction ultimately might be the most consequential of them all.
Erecting an orthodoxy which covers an entire field or range of institutions must ultimately be self-defeating (unless a huge amount of institutional power and probably coercion are brought to bear) in our society. Insurgent voices will simply migrate elsewhere, and found their own book clubs and create routes to publish online. They'll establish their own book prizes. They won't stop reading or writing. If the appetite is out there, then it will be satisfied. The humanities is supposed to reflect the deepest aspects of human existence. By constraining and perverting it the true believers have simply guaranteed their own slow irrelevance. Granted, this will probably take decades (as it will with social science). But the need is there. It's not going away. We must understand society, and we must have written art that reflects the beauty and pain of being a human. We must. No ideological or status-centered substitute will suffice. Most people can recognize the distinctions... even most of the elites who produce and consume the ersatz products. I suspect that's part of the reason that they're so defensive and cliqueish. If they really believed in the superiority of their values and their products they would welcome dissenters and oddballs, knowing that their works would shine in comparison. But their strategy is rather the opposite. It's pretty telling, I'd say...
1. All systems that survive eventually are ruled over by sociopaths. That said, sociopaths do like attractive lovers for their beds.
2. At one time, engineering was seen as a low-prestige degree, a glorified mechanic.
These particular ones I think are more problematic because of their control over knowledge. I also recall reading that computer programmers were low status too. The question is what gender had to do with it.
At one time a programmer was seen as a glorified stenographer.